A Restless Mind

Essays in Honor of Amos Perlmutter

Benjamin Frankel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780714646077
• eBook ISBN: 9781135241858
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Amos Perlmutter has devoted his academic career to the study of comparative politics, international relations and modern authoritarianism. He has written 14 books and more than 70 articles in academic journals. He has also been a prolific contributor to newspapers in the United States and abroad and offered commentary on TV and radio shows. These essays analyse and explain some of his thinking.

Part 1

Introduction

1

The Restless Mind in its Element

The Study of Civil-Military Relations and the Analysis of Politics in Israel

Gabriel Ben-Dor

The study of Israeli politics is intimately intertwined with the study of civil–military relations. This is so because of the exceptionally important role of the military in Israeli society and politics, due to the disproportionately large military establishment in the country, which in turn is the inevitable product of the protracted and costly Arab–Israeli conflict. Yet the complex relationship between the civilian politicians and the military establishment in Israel has challenged and defied conventional theorizing for a long time. It just does not seem to fit neatly into the ubiquitous boxes of social science typologies, as if to send a message to the effect that there is more to this matter than just applying the well-known categories to this particular case.

As one of the first scholars who systematically studied the military in Israel argued, ‘the case of Israel is so exceptional as to provide a check against hasty generalizations.’¹ Quite so, but if it provides a check, it also provides a challenge. In fact, not only does it provide a check, it often provides a refutation of existing theory, while at the same time providing an inviting focus for generating better and more sophisticated theories that can account even for this exceptional case. Particularly is this so in the light of the fact that the other side in the Arab–Israeli conflict has exhibited remarkably different, and most often even diametrically opposed, features of civil–military relations. Hence a comparison has been called for, of course bearing in mind the huge differences in the concrete historical and social conditions along the two sides of this great divide.

Yet scholars, for the most part, failed to live up to this challenge. There have been numerous fine scholars offering insights into the case of Israel, just as there have been quite a few that have studied the cases of the various Arab countries with care and competence. So the information and the insights have accumulated over time. Nevertheless, there was an uneasiness on the theoretical level. People explained the exceptional case of Israel with a variety of variables,² all drawn from the concrete case of the country, and at the same time, others have explained the fate of the key Arab countries (Egypt, Syria and Iraq) within the confines of Arab politics, and perhaps a broader conception of the ‘Third World’, ‘developing countries’, ‘the politics of modernization’ and similar concepts that point to the uniqueness of what used to be called the ‘non-Western world’. The striking, yet implicit conclusion from all this was that Israel and the Arabs were not comparable in this context, and that each had to compared to other cases that were somehow more ‘relevant’.

There was a profound irony in this implicit argument, as if to say that the Israelis and the Arabs indeed did not ‘belong’ together. The Israelis had to be understood either in splendid isolation or in comparison with the ‘developed countries’, while the Arabs had to be understood either in their own, rather large, universe, or else only in comparison with the African and Asian partners for international politics. It remained for Amos Perlmutter and his colleagues to point out that the comparison between Israel and its Arab neighbors, far from being inappropriate, was the best way to shed light on the structures and culture of both, within their dynamically contrasting situations. Since then, this idea has not been free of controversy, but it did start a mainstream trend, which still represents one of the most important contributions to at least three fields in political science: politics in Israel, Middle East politics (is this not a supreme irony that these two are still considered separate fields in many countries, and especially in Israel?!) as well as in the study of civil–military relations itself.

The work of Perlmutter demonstrates the true potential inherent in the very concept of ‘comparative politics’. This sub-field of political science is, for some, and perhaps too many, a euphemism for the study of domestic, as opposed to international, politics in different countries. In most Israeli universities, the equivalent Hebrew term still refers to the ancient Aristotelian term of ‘theory of regimes’ or something along such lines. Of course, this conceptualization misses the point completely. The entire idea of a science of politics, precisely as articulated by Aristotle and his disciples, has been to develop a comparative and analytical facility that would allow the handling of a diversity of cases, not only in order to enjoy the infinite variety of political theory and practice, but also to allow a measure of freedom for the scholar of politics when approaching the problem of experimentation.³

Since it is obviously impractical as well as immoral to expect a real experimental science where human beings are concerned (especially when they are aggregated and organized in large groups), we have had to settle for the two classic substitutes for the laboratory which exists in the physical sciences: history and geography. When we deal with comparisons of identical or similar phenomena over time, we use history as a quasi-laboratory, whereas when we compare different phenomena in more or less the same time frame, we use geography as the same would-be lab. In the technical phases of the philosophy of science,⁴ we may use either diachronic or synchronic comparisons, but without some comparison, we lack the ability to test hypotheses in a truly meaningful way, and hence we miss one of the main elements that makes science the potent human activity that it is. The fact that the stuff of politics does not allow the kind of science that physical phenomena do is too well known to need any argument, but that does not mean that we need to restrict the study of politics to the small universe of familiar phenomena that are derived from a limited experience in time and space, when these very two dimensions of time and space allow for a rich and meaningful insight into a larger universe.

And it is not necessary to aim for the sky. One need not be concerned with testing hypotheses, if one finds that too technical or too pretentious, or both. On the other hand, one may use the broader universe of comparison to good effect when trying to generate hypotheses, insights and ideas on complex political issues, when these could never be generated in a more restricted research environment. This potential of the modern, systematic yet unpretentious comparative method was demonstrated with nothing less than brilliance by Amos Perlmutter as early as the late 1960s. Interestingly enough, this demonstration started with a sharp disagreement with his colleagues in the field of civil–military relations in the Middle East, a disagreement which was conducted in the form of a heated debate, partly on the pages of Comparative Studies in Society and History,⁵ and partly on the pages of World Politics.⁶

Until the late 1960s, it was customary to think of the military in the Middle East (that is, the Middle East excluding Israel) as the pioneers of modernization, the most rational social force in society that attempts to use its overwhelming preponderance of physical force to bring about a process that will pull the society in question into the modern era. This approach had to do partly with fetishism of modernization at the time, and partly with the romantic adoration of the leadership of the ‘Third World’ at the time, an adoration that frequently led to the insufficiently critical adoption of their agendas, claims and even stock phrases, precisely at a time when social science around the world became increasingly critical of each and every norm and leader in its own society. The combination of these two trends led to the creation of almost a double standard, one for one’s own political system, and another for that of the ‘developing countries’.

It took considerable intellectual courage to defy this conventional wisdom and to argue that the king was naked. It was in the late 1960s that a number of scholars developed a much more refined and sophisticated approach to the problems of political development, hence distinguishing first of all between modernization and political development, and second, between concrete interests of social and political forces on the one hand, and their role in the specifics of political transformation on the other. It seems that the most influential single figure in this transition was Samuel Huntington, who pointed to the possibility that there is not only political development, but also ‘political decay’,⁷ and who then went on to argue that it is necessary to look at the military in various situations,⁸ including one that he called ‘praetorian’, a term taken from the political history of the later Roman Empire, when palace guards became the most potent political force, and one that often determined the identity of the ruler of the empire by the use or threat of force.⁹

Concurrently, Perlmutter argued that, in many cases, military forces in the Middle East did not represent any discernible class interests, but their own corporate ones. In so doing, he was able to show that the ideas of class structure and class struggle were often inapplicable to the contours of the historical and social situation in the region, and that, in fact, the concrete examples of Islamic history often allowed for a better understanding of a traditional political phenomenon (an Islamic version of praetorian politics) in its so-called ‘modern’ garb.¹⁰ Also, he was able to show just how empty the ideological pretensions of the praetorian rulers were, and that these pretensions and the accompanying rhetoric were frequently but a camouflage net intended to protect the rulers from a really intense scrutiny that they could ill afford to stand. In the apt phrase coined by Perlmutter at the time, they used ‘colorful ideological mumbo-jumbo’. This is not surprising. What is more surprising is that so many reputable social scientists were caught up in it.

Perlmutter took these social scientists head-on, and in so doing he made a major contribution to moving present-day political sociology beyond the confines of class analysis. Instead, he made an integrated use of such variables as corporate interest, social forces, professionalism and institutionalization.¹¹ To be more exact, he emphasized that, in order to understand civil–military relations, we need to go beyond the mere points of contact between these two spheres, and instead we should start looking not at the military establishments in question, but rather at the societies in question. For the military variables are less important than the societal variables. There may be a great variety of patterns in military establishments that intervene in politics, and there may be quite a diversity even among those that do not intervene in politics actively and forcefully. However, what makes the decisive difference in each case is the nature of society itself, for it is the structure and culture of society that determines whether or not military intervention can and will take place, and not necessarily the structure of the military force involved.

This observation, which today may not sound exactly revolutionary, was, in fact, just that when the argument was initially articulated. For many of the pundits at the time started from the military, arguing that its ‘modern’, rational orientation was the crux of the matter, and that this orientation put it at odds with the traditional leadership of society, thereby creating its propensity to ‘modernizing revolutions’.¹² However, Perlmutter quickly demonstrated that it makes much more sense to start with the analysis of the society in which military intervention is contemplated. For it is a fact that, in some societies, such intervention never takes place, while in others, it is virtually endemic. This cannot be a coincidence, and we must delve into the depths of the question why of in some societies intervention is a matter of daily routine, whereas others are all but immune to it. Beyond that, once we establish the basic proclivity of a society to military intervention, obviously different military establishments will intervene differently, some acting, for instance, as the defenders of the regime, whereas others will challenge it in some radical-revolutionary mode of action.¹³

Following the work of Finer¹⁴ and Huntington, Perlmutter worked with the two key variables of political institutionalization and political culture, without necessarily sticking to that particular term, which has had dramatic ebbs and flows in the history of comparative political analysis. The strength of political institutions (which, in turn, obviously derives from the strength of institutions as such in society at large) helps explain the capacity of societies to contain, absorb and regulate large-scale political participation, which, in turn, is a must in an age of expanding communications, expectations and socialization in general. In a well-institutionalized society, the military are not needed as ultimate arbiters, as there are rules, regulations, procedures and organizations that can balance the pressures of participation and channel them into a political routine.¹⁵ This, in turn, creates (or is it created by?) a political culture that helps sustain the institutional structure by a set of norms and values that are internalized by the key participants in the political process, as well as by the politically relevant mass constituencies. This cultural environment also refers to feelings of solidarity, esprit de corps, attitudes to authority and respect for the autonomy of the political center from the pressures of contending ethnic and other centrifugal social forces.

This approach led to a virtual breakthrough in the study of civil–military relations. Perlmutter was able to demonstrate that there existed a set of societies which he called praetorian, in which military intervention indeed was the norm rather than the exception.¹⁶ These societies lacked the institutional structure that allows civilian politics to be channelled and contained in formal organizations and concrete procedures that are adhered to by all major relevant segments of the population. There are many reasons why societies degenerate into praetorianism, or why indeed they never manage to extricate themselves from it by introducing different norms and institutional mechanisms. So there is no clear progression from one stage to another, hence it is difficult to speak of ‘political development’, the common catch-phrase of the time. Of course, to this is added the inarticulate premise that there are good, sound, concrete reasons why a society functions the way it does, and not the way that some overanxious Western theorists would have it function. These reasons are to be found in the realm of history and society, and not necessarily in the ‘colorful ideological mumbo-jumbo’, as Perlmutter put it at the time.¹⁷

Needless to say, not everyone was happy with this approach. To some, it looked suspect because it failed to address, or so it seemed, the problems of colonialism and neo-colonialism. To others, there was here a very high level of generalization that they chose to reject in the name of the sanctity of area or country specialization.¹⁸ Yet others did not feel that the approach that Perlmutter utilized had the depth and comprehensiveness that the more conventional theories of the time purported to possess. Yet the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Perlmutter did plenty of eating. While he was not considered an expert on Syria, he wrote a penetrating analysis of the relationship between the military elite and the ruling political party in that country, an analysis that was not to be surpassed for many years, and the essential truth of which stands to this very day, clear and unrefuted.¹⁹ He was not considered an expert on Egypt, yet he wrote with authority on that country, culminating with a book on the Egyptian regime.²⁰ That book penetrated the essential structure of the Nasserist regime and its immediate successors better than practically any other theoretically-oriented wor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Part 1 Introduction
• Part 2 Israeli Society and Politics
• Part 3 The Middle East
• Part 4 Civil-military Relations
• Part 5 Miscellaneous